In Twist, Nurses Union Blasts State “Interference” on CharterCARE Sale

Tuesday, November 11, 2025

GoLocalProv News Team

Roger Williams Hospital PHOTO: File

The United Nurses and Allied Professionals (UNAP) has scheduled a press conference for Tuesday, Veterans’ Day, “demanding the State stop interfering in the Centurion deal.”

Centurion, the Georgia-based company, has been trying to buy the bankrupt CharterCARE hospitals for more than three years.

Now, the proverbial clock is on the field as CharterCARE’s parent company, Prospect Medical Holdings, has filed with the federal bankruptcy judge to close the hospitals. Last week, the court gave the parties 60 days to close a deal, or the hospitals will be closed.

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Deal in Focus

UNAP has flip-flopped on this proposed sale a number of times. The union, which claims to represent around 1,000 employees at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital, Roger Williams Medical Center, and Prospect Home Health and Hospice, will hold a press conference calling on state leaders to “stop interfering with the Centurion deal, and keep the focus on closing the deal.”

The union specifically will call on Governor McKee and Secretary of Health and Human Services Richard Charest, a former CEO of Prime-owned Landmark Medical Center, to stop unlawfully interfering with the Centurion deal.

According to UNAP, “Prime has recently sent email communications that include quotes from Secretary Charest – quotes that intentionally mislead the public about Prime’s record.”

Prime recently entered the sweepstakes to buy the hospitals. READ GOLOCAL’S EXAMINATION OF PRIME’S RECORD

The Centurion deal, however, has failed to close.

Last February, when Chief Judge Stacey Jernigan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas gave approval for the sale of the CharterCARE hospitals to Centurion.

That deal has repeatedly stalled. The state’s financing agency, RIHEBC, has tried to sell $150 million in bonds for nine months, but Wall Street has repeatedly rejected the deal.

S&P has rated the bonds BB- with a negative outlook, and has raised further concerns since the passage of the federal Big Beautiful Budget bill, which is expected to reduce Medicaid payments to hospitals like Roger Williams and Fatima.

While UNAP may not like the McKee administration’s involvement in the deal, it is the state that needs to approve the sale of the CharterCARE hospitals. A deal would need approval from both the Rhode Island Department of Health and the Rhode Island Attorney General.

UNAP Previously Blasted the Sale to Centurion

On March 4, 2024, UNAP announced its opposition to Centurion Foundation’s bid to buy the CharterCARE healthcare facilities.

UNAP had urged the Department of Health and Attorney General Peter Neronha to reject Centurion’s application. UNAP had approved the initial sale of CharterCARE to Prospect more than a decade ago.

A GoLocal report unveiled that Centurion employs just one full-time employee.

The union said the proposed business model “is not credible or viable, starting with the fact that Centurion has never owned or operated a hospital or healthcare facility.”

The union also noted that Centurion “will not be bringing any new capital to these facilities, at a time when that’s what is needed most.”

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Chris Callaci of UNAP PHOTO: GoLocal

UNAP on Record

“We took a good hard look at the application when it was made public, and it didn’t take long to find a business model that is simply not credible or viable,” stated UNAP General Counsel Chris Callaci. “There are a number of significant issues in Centurion’s application, with the most glaring being the fact that they are an unknown entity that has never owned or operated a hospital or healthcare facility. They are not bringing any capital to the table and plan to saddle our community hospitals with more than $133 million in debt – money they aren’t on the hook to pay back. The closer we look, the worse this application gets.”

UNAP cited a number of major concerns within Centurion’s application, including the following claims:

“Centurion doesn’t own or operate any hospitals and doesn’t know how to. Centurion knows that CharterCARE (Roger Williams Medical Center, Fatima Hospital and Prospect Home Health and Hospice) continues to lose money, which is unsustainable. But Centurion is not going to make any financial commitments to CharterCARE facilities.

Centurion is not putting up any of their own money in this sale. Instead, they expect these community hospitals and healthcare facilities to borrow more than $133 million to stay afloat. Centurion is not on the hook to pay this money back. CharterCARE facilities will have to pay it back with money they don’t have. Since these hospitals operate at a loss, there are no revenues to pay this debt down.

According to Centurion, these community hospitals and healthcare facilities are supposed to survive by finding cost-savings and new revenue, which they haven’t been able to do for decades now.

At the same time that Centurion refuses to invest any money in these healthcare facilities, they insist on making CharterCARE’s hospitals and facilities pay them numerous fees and charges. Worse, Centurion refuses to tell us what the fees and charges are for, or how much they will be.”

Callaci continued, “We are going to do all we can to secure the future of CharterCARE. But having an out-of-state corporation from Georgia come to Rhode Island to take advantage of us is not the answer. This company wants to make us borrow a ton of money we can’t pay back. This doesn’t get us anywhere. In fact, it makes our financial situation much worse than it already is.”

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